Should I buy a Classic iPod or an MP3 player? I’m confused.
You can’t really go wrong with the iPod classic which happens to be a great mp3 player. The iPod classic comes in two different hard drive sizes 80GB and 160GB which should be more than enough space to put your entire music collection on. But the iPod is not just a great mp3 player it can also play videos although the screen is a bit small it does the job. If you plan on watching a lot of videos consider the iPod Touch which has a gorgeous wide touch screen which makes it a excellent portable video player.
The iPod Classic uses hard drives for the huge amount of storage which means there are moving parts inside so if you plan on doing a lot of physical activities while listening to you iPod consider buying a “flash” based mp3 player which has no moving parts and will not skip. The iPod Nano and iPod Shuffle both uses flash memory.
There are other great mp3 players out there as well that offer more features than the iPod. Some offer FM radio, and sound recording things that the iPod lack. So if FM radio is important to you than consider another mp3 player to fit your needs. A good place to check out other mp3 players and find reviews from real users is Amazon.com, see what people like or dislike about the certain mp3 players. Reading reviews will make your mp3 buying purchase a lot easier.
I am curious why you do not mention that Apple MP3 players lock you into the proprietary iTunes software with has lots of restricts – even on music you may have ripped from your own CDs. That is why I will probably never buy a iPod, Touch, or other Apple.
iTunes allows you to rip CD’s in Mp3 formats so you can upload it to any MP3 player you want without restriction. Just need to make sure you import the CD in MP3 rather than “AAC”. In the Controls -> Preferences -> Advanced tab and then to Importing.